Love is Not Geography

Technology has some interesting uses that I never imagined using it for. For example: late last week, after I'd gotten comments on my previous post, I realized that it would be useful for my therapist to read the post so we could talk about it, and if she did this before our session, we'd have more time to talk about it. So I texted my therapist about the post and she texted back that she was happy to read it. Then, in our session this week, she pulled up my blog on her iPad so she could comment on certain parts of it, or on something in a comment that struck her. So much easier than my trying to remember what I was thinking a week or so beforehand that had seemed so important but I'd forgotten to write down so I'd remember it for therapy!

So we talked about my post. She at first was concerned that I was going to Move Right Now, so I explained that, among the reasons for me to stay was the fact that I have this great therapist who is helping me a whole lot and I'd rather not leave her right now. And that I am just not ready to choose another place to live. I have too many things churning inside my head to be able to make a reasoned and good decision about where to live next. I'm staying here for now and continuing the good fight with my therapist. Not that I'm fighting with my therapist!

One of the main things that struck her was how powerless and passive the first part of the post sounded, where I talk about what I don't like or don't have where I live now, what would or wouldn't work in the other places I'm considering. It's like I'm a victim of circumstance. It also shows me having external loci of control (the weather, if my friends have time to spend with me, etc.) rather than internal. I discussed in a previous post ("Locusts of Control") how having external loci of control leaves you powerless to make your life the way you want and to make yourself happy. 

But in the last part of the post, where I talk about what I want, she said I sound much more powerful and confident, much more active. And, she said, can't I have what I say I want right where I am?

Well, I live in a small apartment in a complex on a lake, so I'm close to the water. I do not have a view of it from my apartment, but all I have to do is step out the front door for a peek of the water, and I'm just a couple of minutes' walk to the edge of the lake or the fishing dock. I can go out and look at the water any time I want.

If I want, I can make my apartment look cottage-y. I could put a slipcover on my black leather couch, or sell it and buy a more cottage-by-the-water style of couch (I've already seen one at Ikea). I am uncluttering. I could decorate with more of a cottage theme. I can make my apartment a place I'm completely comfortable in (although I think that moving up a floor and getting just a bit further from the bugs would help).

I want to work freelance from home: I should be able to do that here if anywhere. And I could possibly develop clients here who would want to work with me remotely if I moved.

I could even have a small container garden on the deck, if I wanted to deal with the sound of the AC compressors right next to my deck. And lots of people do that, even other people right next to the AC compressors.

I could have cats here. I could find someone I could pay to watch the cats when I'm gone. 

I can write here. I could go to the monthly dinners and breakfasts that the management office puts on and meet some of my neighbors.

I can do any and all of these things and they won't matter a bit if I don't find that love and comfort and confidence and power inside of myself. I'll just keep on moving and not being happy, being uncomfortable and dissatisfied until I do find those things within me. Hell, I could even sell my mom's RAV4 and buy a Subaru and I still wouldn't be happy and I'd think it was because I was stupid for doing it, because the car wasn't right, or I'd think my mom would be unhappy with what I did when really I'd still feel unhappy because I hadn't fixed my thinking and hadn't fixed the things that cause me dissatisfaction and discomfort.

Even my BFF — who'd rather I had long hair and put it at the top of his version of "what I should change" list — agrees with that, no matter how much he wants me to move back to Seattle. (And I'm not growing my hair out, dude!)

So that's where I am: still unhappy and dissatisfied and all cluttered up inside but at least with more clarity into why and a renewed motivation to working harder on my therapy so I can make my decisions and my actions based on rational thinking and healthy decision-making. And so I can be confident that I'm not lugging that same powerless, victimized baggage with me wherever, and whenever, I go.